After death, Martha Stewart’s requests to be buried alongside director R.J. Cutler should be fulfilled. With the new Netflix documentary named Martha, Cutler has created the perfect tribute to Stewart which can be seen as a Praise a take-down tone piece that depicts all aspects of the lifestyle guru. cutler is again in the picture; Stewarts reaction shocks me considering the role she played in facilitating the show. She is depicted as someone who is confrontational, egotistical, domineering, and, at times, imaginative and promises supremacy over everyone. But this was all a facade of her being a disturbed visionary who is now victorious. But victory at what cost? Companion says it nicely by saying that Martha Stewart is the influence behind the world we live in today where everything is perfect but in reality chaos lies underneath it all. Is Martha a good movie? I’m not sure. But it might be an essential one. Wherever R.J. Cutler goes R.J. Cutler moves, pyramid has the answer.
While the documentary portrays Stewart’s life in a rather neutral approach as there is excessive use of archival footage, it has some interesting anecdotes. It features narration that covers her start and marriage with Andy Stewart, who is both a law student and a successful publishing house owner. They eventually got a house in Westport, Connecticut, which was a dilapidated structure that her husband’s wife renovated creatively. Lastly, the clips portray her shocking zest for throwing elaborate dinner parties. The fascinating part here, and this has been common in streaming-era documentaries, is the first portion of the film where Martha Kostyra starts as a model while playing Etta James’s “Good Lookin”. There are various more compliments associated with her as well, like when she transitioned to being a stockbroker “These Boots Are Made for Walkin” was played and when she became a lifestyle guru, Depeche Mode’s “Just Can’t Get Enough” was played in the background.
However, the focus of the documentary is unflinchingly on Ireland’s native, now 83-year-old Stewart who has aged with grace. Moreover, she was one of the great contributors to the film as she sat down for a fresh interview.
(Other interviewees such as her family, friends, employees, and inmates whom she bunks with at Alderson Federal Prison — remain off-screen as they testify, in a chorus-like manner, to her grit and determination, and at times, her kindness.) She toughs it out and translates one’s life into a memoir, preferring to hold back few things on matters that Cutler pressed her on. Now about Stewart when she vents about Andy going ‘Hey, he cheated on me’ Cutler interrupts and points out that she did the same to him. Responding, Stewart replies: “Yeah, but Andy never knew about that.” When Cutler replied saying, but he certainly, as a matter of fact, did, do you take Stewart’s vow to cut so much or just a grin in an affair? That kind of tit-for-tat really would put off Stewart or rather dislike her because it does simplify everything she hates to say. And it changes Martha the movie from just another dull romance of a celebrity into something useful.
Stewart’s unblemished physical appearance was an advantageous element of her work. One could say enhancing the beauty around her and preparing dishes, while still looking the best version of herself came as easy as breathing to her. This is where the movie emphasizes the major target audience for Stewart’s products and services- such women who themselves were brought up with working mothers and did not inherit any skills of being a house maker like recipes. Stewart filled that void, and she did so without needing anything in return except maybe a smile. She was there, smiling and ready for action, absent of a single flaw, like a good housewife in Homescape commercials or her episode of MacGyver, where she can magically create a decoration from a glass jug and tissues. She had a great deal of creative power and energy directed at all of that, but she could make it seem easy because of her taste.
Stewart on the other hand got a rude shock when she was mired in controversy. Stewart had an unimpressed attitude towards virtually everything, so everyone was happy to see her understating quite a few things. The infamous insider trading scandal that landed her in prison is still a raw subject; Stewart and others involved continue to claim she did nothing illegal, and that she became a target because then-U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York James Comey wanted to make a name for himself by bagging a celebrity. Additionally, she claimed that she did things differently while in prison and only tried to make friends with the rest of the inmate women. Most of the people who admired her had fallen out of that perfect status and once a few things were relaxed, she appeared to be friendly with everyone.
All this would have a great rise-fall-rise structure for a typical story and one can easily guess what the treatment for this film would have looked like: Now you will see how Martha Stewart becomes successful, then how the world goes out of the way to humiliate her, and then how she fights her way back to success and respect. And perhaps Martha still believes that it is such a movie. But Cutler’s interactions with Stewart as well as seeing how she interacts with other people occasionally and puts the museum and the subject into a different picture little more interesting. For most movies, when they are about to finish, is when more or less the last pieces of the puzzle come together. However, in Martha, this is rather invited. The more of Stewart we see, the more we feel for her, and the more we come to appreciate her — yet the less we grasp. No one out of her can be portrayed. And this is where Mirtha stands out from her competitors. The movie focuses exactly on why she seems to fail.
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